Party
The fact I have noticed since I had started to go out with my boy friend, who is American, is that the people, especially the foreigners in Japan, greet to only him, introduce themselves to only him, and glance at me as just his girlfriend who is Japanese, as usual. I hate this, but the night was started with this.
Saturday, I was invited to the party, held at one of my friends place. I usually go to these kinds of parties with my boy friend, so then talked with his friends accompanied with him. This time, it was actually my friend, of course he knows him too, but I tried to get acquitted with new people separately from him.
There were a lot of people, much more than I thought. Half were foreigner, and half were Japanese mixed with guys & girls. We encountered the guys from the party on the way to my friend’s place. My boyfriend seemed to know one of them from before. The guy said hello to him, introduced his name again, and glanced at me a moment. Before I introduced myself, he started to chat with my guy, and left to the store to get some drinks. This happens often, at parties, at clubs, at restaurants……so I am already used to it. Even though, this is never very nice. I decided to be more social by myself at the party on that night, so I did.
I met a few whom I already knew, and actually I introduced him to them as my boy friend. I also met new people, exchanged e-mail address and phone number. I had a great fun, did some girls talk, complained about guys things, got flirted with some guys.
Of course it is good too, being at those social occasion as his girl friend, and just being his belonging. But this is actually better to go there together, and be separate for a while, get to know with new people, and get back together again later. I have to admit I could not do before, because I was not confident enough to be by myself or be separate from him. After the party I realized that was me who had not tried to introduce myself and been satisfied at being his belonging. So I re-met the guy whom we met on the way later that night, I talked to him, he was pretty nice guy.
I have to stop being his girlfriend all the time, and make him my boyfriend more.

Westernized
I am wondering if I could say I speak English in a loud voice. I am not fluent at all, I can just communicate in English. But do I really want to be fluent? Is it possible living in Japan?
One night, I went to two home parties accidentally. I was invited from my friend, and after that, the other friend whom I went there together asked me if I could go the other one held by his friend. I went to the beach daytime with my boyfriend PJ, so was really tired. PJ was there too, in a kind of party mood. So he was ready to go two parties, then why not…..?
At the first party, there were about 20 people, half Japanese half foreigners. There was the girl, who was the girlfriend of PJ’s friend, named Keiko. She was so happy to see me at the party, we talked together for a while. She told me that she was so impressed by me when we met first time, and has been adored me since then. According to her, I am very social, speak great English and deal with the foreigners on a line, looks so mature. I am not. I am not social enough, speak fake English, just try to speak with his friends in English. I was actually told my English sounded very fluent, where I had learned and how from the other girl who had lived in Canada for a year studied English. Were those people telling me white lie? I did not go to my head, but those compliments made me feel nice. So maybe I tried to be more social than usual unintentionally. Maybe I acted like really western like.
We moved to the second party around midnight. I was tired as hell and was in a bad mood because of that. Plus we had not had enough foods, so were hungry too. My drunken friend had trouble to find the party place, his friend’s house, but we fortunately run into the people from the party on the way. They told us the party was now “break time” because the policemen came over to check it, some neighbors called them. It was beautiful night, so we went to the small park nearby to walk around for a while. I understood at a moment when got in the house why the policemen came over, it was totally “Gaijin-house” atmosphere. The house had two stories, and there were more than 30 people in total. They set up small DJ booth at the each floor, were playing nice suspicious music, now quietly. Maybe they played little louder before the policemen came. Everybody was really drunk. I started to feel uncomfortable for some reason, even though I was pretty much drunk too. PJ was talking with some girl, and I was talking with this friend, Aussie guy who brought us here. There was his ex-girlfriend too, who broke up with him just few days ago. He was mumbling about the relationship with her, why she was bad to him, and started to flirt me. That was okay to some extent. He basically likes flirting with me in a friendly way. But he was beyond the line at that night, started to touch my legs and told me how great I am, sexy and cool, if I were not PJ’s girlfriend, he would have….That was sweet of him, I said thank you, but I was not too fucked up to be convinced him by his white lie. I walked over to PJ, interrupted his conversation with the girl who looked like be interested in him, and went up to upstairs, settled with PJ again. That was comfortable. It was dark, small room and the guy was playing good lounge music. It was more foreign & suspicious atmosphere than the first cheerful party. I liked both parties, but I had to admit I was more comfortable at the first party. I knew the reason when the girl showed up on the second floor to warn us to be quiet.
She seemed to live this house, one of this party organizer. She was small & skinny Japanese. She stood in front of us, and shouted “Warning!” Basically what she said us that we have got to be careful because the policemen came again to tell us that we could still be here because it was midnight, so we had nowhere to move. But we had to be very quiet, no music. What annoyed me was the way of her speaking. Yes, she is real fluent. Her speaking is really western. She said, “Quiet, but have fun,” and left to downstairs. I noticed that most of Japanese who were there, 2nd party, were pretty fluent in English, and somehow had “foreigner attitude”. They were not at the 1st party. Probably I was the one of the most “foreigner attitude” person there. And it brought me unpleasant idea. Was I possibly like her at the first party? Did I look like being so proud about speaking more natural English than others? Was I very snobbish because I could deal with the foreigners equally? Because of that, was I more comfortable there? Not because this second place looked a bit shady? If so, it is the proof that I think Japanese is inferior to westerners. I do not think I think this way, but I cannot persuade myself it is not either.
I have been thinking it would be wonderful if I could be really fluent in English, but now, I am not sure. What is fluent?